UN and Iceland disburse US$2.5M to empower Mozambican women: Access to land, access to credit

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UN and Iceland disburse US$2.5M to empower Mozambican women: Access to land, access to credit

6:54 CAT | 21 Apr 2017

Lusa (File photo)

UN Women, the United Nations body that fights for gender equality, and the government of Iceland will invest 2.5 million US dollars over the next three years in the empowerment of women and girls in Mozambique.

An agreement to this effect was signed in Maputo on Thursday, launching the project entitled “Promoting the Effective Participation of Women and Girls in Peace, Security and Recovery in Mozambique”.

This project aims to ensure that peace and security processes in Mozambique contribute to gender equality and to the social, political and economic empowerment of women.

The project will be implemented as from this month and will run until December 2020. It will cover four districts, yet to be identified, in the central provinces of Manica, Sofala, Tete and Zambezia.

Speaking to reporters, the representative in Mozambique of UN Women, Florence Raes, said that the project will attend to the economic and social needs of women affected by the recent conflict between Renamo and the government’s defence and security forces.

“The first and main objective is to guarantee that women participate at community and local level in questions about dialogue, peace and security in the country”, said Raes. She also wanted to ensure that women were covered by such matters as access to land and access to credit.

The charge d’affairs at the Icelandic Embassy, Vilhjalmur Wiium, said that with this funding for women’s empowerment he hoped that some of the main difficulties they face will be solved. He believed that the assistance for women and girls will have a significant impact on their development.

The Deputy National Director for Gender and HIV/AIDS, at Mozambique’s Ministry for Gender, Children and Social Welfare, Sansao Buque, said that the project will allow greater participation by women in decision making, as well as their integration into the Defence and Security Forces.

“We shall see an increasing number of women participating in peace and emergency missions”, forecast Buque, adding that the project also corresponds to the targets for women’s empowerment laid down in the government’s five year programme for the period 2015-2019.

Source: AIM